Mount Greylock Beckons
by LittleTee
Summary: A collection of one-shots written for the second season of the International Wizarding School Championship. This time for good ole Ilvermorny! Now featuring, "Run Until It's Tomorrow." Summary: Sirius Black has an idea. A terrible, ridiculous one but when has that ever stopped him before? He was the odds breaker. So, really if any wizard could do this it was him.
1. Love Will Keep Us Together

**Submitted for the first round of The International Wizarding School Championship.**

**School: Ilvermorny**

**Year: **_**Exchange Student 1 filling in for year seven.**_

**Theme: The Burrow, which focuses on a warm family life where a little goes a long way with a bit of love.  
****Special Rule:** **You will have to write something that you have never written before. Each school will have a different designated element that you will have to ensure is different from anything you have ever written. This is worth 5 bonus points!**

_**Special Rule Element—Ilvermorny:**_ _**Write a setting you have never written before.  
**_**Setting: The Lovegood House (aka the Rookery).**

**Main prompt: [Character] Pandora Lovegood**

**Optional prompts: [Object] An Infant's Crib and [Colour] Emerald Green.**

**Wordcount: **_1,330_

**Author's Note: Snargaluffs is a plant that Harry believed was in the Lovegoods' front garden when he, Ron, and Hermione visited them looking for more information on the Deathly Hallows. I took creative licence in that I made it to actually be those plants, as well as add some symbolism here and there reflecting Pandora and Xenophilius's union and little Luna's character. **

**A big thanks to my awesome teammates for proofing this for me. Thank you. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Love Will Keep Us Together**

Pandora sang happily along to the Captain & Tennille single playing on the wireless. It was her and Xenophilius's favourite song and she never got tired of hearing it. While singing, she filled the old dented blue kettle and set it on the range to boil. Pandora loved her tea.

She opened the window further and looked out to where her husband, Xenophilius, was busily working away with his adze on the large trunk of birch driftwood. She smiled slightly. They had found it while strolling along some coastlines during an expedition on Asklepieion. It was just one of thirteen such pieces of driftwood they had thusly discovered and decided to keep as mementos of their many journeys. She had never considered for a moment that her absent-minded sweetheart was collecting them to use as nursery furniture. It was just one of several such sweet surprises he had amazed her with over the years and one of the things that made her love him even more than she already did.

A nursery, something she had never thought she'd need thanks to a pegasus accident when she was nine. And now, not only did she need it, but she was going to use it soon. Pandora's smile grew radiant as she patted her just beginning to show belly lightly. It was a blessing to be cherished and nurtured. Her prayers had been answered.

Xenophilius had already moved his workspace from the first floor into the living room—his printing press, inks, papers, typewriter, photography equipment, and reference books now demanding one corner of the modest living room—making things a tad more crowded but definitely liveable in their little castle tower home.

Pandora giggled when she remembered how Xenophilius had put on such an enterprise around revealing their future home three years ago.

* * *

_"Xen? How much further is it? Walking in high heels while blindfolded is not what I envisioned when you said you had a surprise waiting for us." she commented after catching herself from stumbling over some pebbles. She was getting tired. She was clinging onto an emerald green ribbon letting herself be led in the wilds of an unknown English countryside to whatever gift Xenophilius had made for them. But she loved her new husband—they had been wed for just three months—so she continued to walk despite her hamstrings protesting with each step._

_Afterwards, she'd felt bad that she had had no idea he had been working on such an architectural endeavour._

"_Not too far now, Pan dear. It's just over this ridge and past the horned clover sprites' den."_

_Pandora grinned despite her building frustration with Xenophilius, she couldn't help it. Whenever he would start his ramblings of fanciful creatures it would make her smile. _

"_Pandora," Xenophilius whispered tenderly as he bestowed to her a small chess piece, a rook, as he canceled the blindfold charm with a wave of his wand. "As I promised you back in Hogwarts, I have made you your own castle tower. For us and us alone."_

_She looked up from the polished cherry wood rook to see a lifesize replica standing proudly before her. Instead of wood it had been fashioned from cut stone and brick, but the spiral and spirit of the tower were there, breathing its own form of oxygen. _

"_Oh, Xen! I love it, thank you!" she exclaimed happily as she jumped up and kissed him. Handling him the ribbon and rook, she whispered a charm joining the two objects together, thus creating a pedant that bounced and swirled in her hands. _

_Xenophilius smiled, his eyes twinkling as he swept his love's hair aside and gently brought the newly crafted necklace around her neck and fashioned the ends of it in a bow. _

* * *

The shrill whistle of the kettle and the babble of the news anchor over the wireless brought Pandora out of her reminisces.

"—_Now the Minister of Magic denied any comment as to why he was found without any clothes in the Grand Sorcerer's Fountain or why there were two identical women with him, neither of whom were his wife—" _

_Now that was interesting… maybe wrackspurts glorying in their mischief?_ Pandora mused as she waved her wand to pour the hot water into the teacups. They were part of one of her favourite sets; they were oriental themed boasting a bluebird mingling with an emerald and periwinkle parakeet framed within a floral border of hyacinth orchids, bamboo irises, and a saucer magnolia crowning the bouquet. It was a specially crafted set made by Xenophilius's uncle and gifted to them three years ago on their wedding. Four explosions, two quakes, and one crash later, the set was down from thirteen servings to five. She couldn't help grinning as she magically removed the tea infusers from both cups, the whimsical image of one day sharing milk tea or chai with both her husband and child warming her heart to overabundance. What a great memory that would be...Three souls, a family, enjoying tea together on a cold winter afternoon.

With a whispered word Pandora opened the door as she carried the bamboo tea tray laiden with tea, biscuits, and luchon sandwiches of cucumber, egg salad, and lemon dill with cream cheese. The crabapple trees and the dirigible plum bushes swayed back from the path allowing her room as she walked past. A quick, reflexive stunning charm to the snargaluffs later and she had passed them by and was already on the back forking path that ran to where Xenophilius was now busily bead planing hazel into cylinder balusters.

With a flick of her wrist she transfigured some wood shavings into a rustic dining set for two.

"Tea time, love." Pandora announced, the tray hovering over the heart shaped rowan wood table.

"Tea? Is it that late already… thank you, my sweet." Xenophilius looked up from his wood planing. His glasses were horribly askew and his long hair was terribly tangled being tasseled by the wind to and fro—and yet Pandora thought he was cute, _her zany Xen_.

With a grand twirl of his wand the balusters, railing, headboards, and base danced and flew around them before affixing themselves into a crib. Their crib for _their_ child.

And, yet, something was missing.

With a twinkle in her eyes, Pandora snapped her fingers. She knew exactly what the crib was missing. A mobile was the finishing touch this needed. She hummed as she summoned willow, apple, and vine from the pile of driftwood. She was not a talented carpenter like Xen but she could still do some fancy woodworking spells when the occasion called for it, like now. With a pirouette she whirled her wand and the apple wood spun itself into a hooked pole and the willow became flexible enough to join itself into a round band while the vine narrowed and lengthened to connect the two together. With some more wandwork she had crafted animal shapes from fallen shavings and secured it to the mobile.

Now all it needed was a coat of paint. Something that she could have waited on doing until later but she was never one to put off what could be done today for the morrow. Thus, she summoned her paints and her brushes and began to paint the crib in a rich emerald green with white clover dotted along the bottom trim. A bunny nibbling on a clover with its mate standing guard was colorfully drawn upon the headboard. For the footboard Pandora decided to hand letter, "Laid Up On Da Green."

Xenophilius clapped as he finished his third sandwich. "Brillant charmwork. Now come join me before the tea gets any colder."

Pandora accepted the offered tea cup from his outstretched hand, blushing, as she joined him at the table. Clinking their cups together they shared the same happy grin and twinkles in their eyes.

It was going to be one of those happy memories they would both cherish forever.

_Fini_


	2. (Writing School Drabble) Drink Me

**Submitted for the first round of the Writing School Challenge featured in the Wizarding World News - Season 2 Issue 1, over at The International Wizarding School Championship forum.**

**School: Ilvermorny**

**Year: Exchange Student 1.**

**Theme: This week's challenge is to write a drabble focusing on the introduction. Try to implement some of the tips to draw the reader in right from the beginning.**

**Prompt: [Setting] A Pub in the Early Morning**

**Wordcount: 941 (10% leeway used)**

**Author's Note: An AU where some wizards survived the war without much fanfare to the fact. I will probably expand this into a multi-chapter story sometime in the future since I like where this could go-all thanks to a certain snarky Slytherin who stole the show. No really, this was supposed to be an Oliver/Hermione tale not a Severus/Hermione one.**

* * *

**Drink Me**

The ancient, wooden, weather-beaten sign swayed in the light of dawn as the cloaked wizard passed under it. He looked up to read the words on the side: the Rabbit Hole Pub and narrowed his eyes at the name. That earned a sneer from the figure, as if it had threatened to lower his reputation.

His search was nearing its end. Soon he would have her.

Laughter longered around him as he strode into the pub like a dark tempest, his wintery cloak billowing around him. His pitch-black eyes swept across the almost desolite public house and inn before him.

Why would _she_ choose to work _here_ of all ungodly places in Britain? It was a rat's nest of pests and underlings that deserved nothing of her time, yet alone her attention.

Granted, he was not deserving of her grace, mercy, or beauty… and yet, being the greedy and overgrown bat of a wizard that he was he wasn't going to let her go.

As the cock crowed, he took a booth in the back corner and waited. Waited for his prey to greet and serve him. The thought shouldn't send chills of excitement coursing through his cold, cursed veins but, oh, it did.

He smiled a hidden smile as he saw _her_ and her bushy hair trailing behind her as she strode purposefully to a table not too far from him. He whispered a handy eavesdropping charm that every former spy would know and watched.

"Did you enjoy your _conquest_ last night, my king?" Pansy sickeningly purred from where she sat snuggled against her red-haired date.

The wizard scoffed. When had Parkinson taken to lowering herself to that level?

He waved the thought aside as Hermione slammed two beer steins down onto the table where Pansy Parkinson and Hermione's former crush, Ronald Weasley, (supposedly the hater of everything and everyone Slytherin), were cuddling and cooing together.

It was the mating song of the shallow heart, no doubt.

_She_ turned and left the table and the two annoying lovebirds behind.

She hadn't seen him.

The sting was quickly forgotten as he decided that if the mountain would not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad would go to the mountain.

* * *

Hermione inwardly screamed as she took another order of drinks to a couple of quidditch players still partying from the night before.

What really steamed her was that Ronald had been completely oblivious. She could have been a bipedal black unicorn with rainbow hair and freaking wings and he would still have not seen her. No, all his attention—what little there was!—was all aimed at his _paramoure_.

She sighed and forced herself to dampen her ire. There was no need to bash him. It hadn't been _him_ who had pined away over someone he called a friend and took little gestures to mean more than there were: gifts between friends, nothing more. It wasn't his fault.

And it wasn't even Pansy's fault; she had renounced the Dark Lord at the last minute alongside her then-boyfriend Draco Malfoy. No, the fault was allowing her hormonal self to get infatuated with a close friend who had hidden depths and talents—he hadn't been crowned the Wizarding World's Chess Champion for nothing—but utterly clueless about girls... or had been.

She angrily threw her hands up into the air and spun, slamming right into none other than another one of her old crushes, (albeit not as old or as long as her crush on Ron had been), Oliver Wood. His tanned and calloused hands caught her arms, successfully preventing her from stumbling backwards onto her bum.

"Woah, there, Granger. I never knew you would fall for my charms." He cheerfully quipped with her, his dark Irish eyes dancing in silent laughter.

Gracefully, or as gracefully as she could manage, she freed herself from his embrace.

"Not so much fallen but caught, Mister Wood. Your party is in their usual spot in the back." She casually played off his banter with a forced smile. It would not be wise to offend one of the star patrons of the Rabbit Hole. After all, it was the only place that would give the schedule she wanted: one week on and three weeks off. Those three weeks were vital if she were ever going to find her parents and reverse the mental charms she had cursed them with.

How was she to know that they wouldn't stay put in Australia?

Or that she would have to help rebuild Hogwarts from the rubble it had been turned into before she could finish her schooling and begin her search for them?

"Ever the one to play the snitch." He muttered, his eyes dimming ever so lightly and a tight smile, unnatural for the Oliver she once knew.

Then again, time changed people. Merlin knew, it had changed her.

He gave her a small nod as he went to join his group.

"It's no use going back to yesterday—" she began, muttering the quote aloud, not seeing the lone figure sitting at the bar beside her.

"—because I was a different person then." The dark wizard's hypnotic, susurrus voice finished.

It was oddly comforting.

She had heard that voice before but—No! It couldn't be _him_. He was dead!

And yet. . .

"Professor Snape?"

His eyes glimmered as he raised his hood; his trademark smirk was just short of its usual coldness.

"Yes?" His eyebrow raised. His body radiating every nuance of the succinct, and brusque man she knew him to be, but yet something else was lurking beneath that exterior and it was mesmerizing, bewitching almost.

_Oh, this was not good. Not good at all._

_Fini._


	3. The Case of the Dauntless Doppelgänger

**Submitted for the first round of The International Wizarding School Championship.**

**School: Ilvermorny**

**Year: **_**Exchange Student 1 filling in for year 5.**_

**Theme: Mystery**

**Main prompt: [Platonic Pairing] Severus Snape/ Lucius Malfoy**

**Optional prompts: [Quote] "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." - Walt Disney & [Song] A Better Son by Rilo Kiley**

**Wordcount: **_1398 _

**Author's Note: This is set in an AU where Tom Riddler was never born, thus no Voldemort. Lucius through Severus discovered the world of Sherlock Holmes during Hogwarts and the pair become fast friends. Severus tried to model his logic and reasoning after Sherlock while Lucius preferred Mycroft's methods and mindset. This is not a crossover. **

**Major thanks to my teammates for beta and help revising this to a smaller, more appropriate story. **

* * *

**The Case of the Dauntless Doppelgänger**

Severus Snape swirled the burning amber liquor slowly as he savoured the bittersweet bite of his specially selected blend of tobacco lofting lazily from his glowing pipe. The orange-golden dancing flames of the roaring fire in the overly grandiose fireplace playfully tangoed with the remaining tendrils of sunlight across the opulently furnished private smoking room of the Diogenes Club. Unlike its literary namesake _this_ Diogenes Club had two rooms where wizards or witches could indulge in conversation: the Stranger's Room, of course, and this smoking lounge commonly known as the Founder's Folly where admittance was restricted to only the two founders. And curiously, one of the two was mysteriously half an hour late, which was not like him—Lucius—at all. Likely scenarios twirled around his mental landscape—his mindscape—in time with the flickering firelight.

Severus hoped it was something not mundane in nature, he was in serious need of a challenge, of something more mentally taxing than grading yards of ill-worded essays or finding new ways to covertly attract a certain newly christened Charms Mistress's attention. Maybe discussing her previous achievement of earning a Potions Mastery? Or perhaps her new article he had started reading the other day. That had proposed a most interesting theory about the uses of shrivelfig and wormwood together.

He took a sip of his drink as the clock struck the hour just as the door flew open and an unusually haggered Lucius Malfoy rushed in.

"Now that is curious, indeed." Severus smirked; amusement litting his dark obsidian eyes as a mental movie played via his hard learned Legilimency. One that starred that selfsame witch that had unknowingly overshadowed his shattered heart. "Why would the ever sensible Professor Granger punch you?" Severus's eyes widened as he silently vanished his glass over to the mantelpiece. "My, you _have _been busy, Lucius. Whatever have you done to earn three such assaults in one day?"

"Hell's teeth and Merlin's cursed grimoire, Severus! I don't have the foggiest idea why! Everyone has gone mad." Lucius frowned, sighed and quickly uttered the necessary charms to right his disheveled robes and straighten his long blond locks into his usual decorum of polished English elegance. Another series of waves and a glass was poured from Malfoy's own decanter of Blishen's Firewhisky before it whisked itself across the room to its summoner's outstretched hand.

Severus drew on his pipe, a half smile tugging on his lips, while Lucius threw back his drink and finished its contents in one drink. Another oddity in and of itself—Lucius would never _rush_ fine aged liquor. Severus crossed his legs and waited. This promised to be rather entertaining if nothing else.

"Now my dear friend, tell me exactly what you did today."

Lucius sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as the day and its ugly events came back in his mind. He readied himself to share it with his longtime friend. At least Severus wouldn't oppenly laugh at him. Perhaps he would raise his eyebrows or issue a biting retort, but those he could easily handle in stride; after all he was the quintessential Slytherin.

"It all started when I arrived four hours late for work! It was five minutes into lunch, so it was partially deserted. Only Stacy Leggings was still at her post—she is more ghost than witch for someone so young."

Lucius paused as he poured himself another drink. However, Severus wasn't going to wait.

"Talk first, _then_, you can drink," he said, intercepting Lucius' glass and putting it near his own forgotten drink.

The man sent a glare Severus' way, but he seemed to decide that one should not antagonise the one person _not _aiming for his head.

"Only our longtime friendship keeps me from protesting against your sudden teetotalism."

Severus tapped his pipe as he silently encouraged Lucius to continue his personal recount despite his current glout.

"After passing Leggings I managed to make it to my office without running into anyone who could gloat afterwards to Merlin and his owl that a Malfoy was tardy."

"A true horror no doubt."

"Indeed." Lucius's eye twitched. "I caught up with the morning missives and had just started reviewing the proposal for an Olympic grade swimming pool for the Hogwarts Swim Team—"

"—Lockhart, I presume?"

"Who else would have the audacity and imbelicy to present such outlandish notions?" Lucius answered as he fished out his cigarette case and flipped it open. "As I was about to pen my polite yet firm refusal to Lockhart's most recent idea, that Professor Granger you seem to fancy storms into my office and begins rattling off utter nonsense about something that happened that morning. Something about one of the other school governors acting unprofessionally and demanding an apology—why she picked me to come spout her grievances to I cannot say. Before I could finish instructing which department and to whom she should speak to about such matters and stop wasting my very precious time, she muttered something before punching me. It was all rather perplexing and quite uncalled for but she was gone before I could summon assistance.

"Then not ten minutes later an irate parent burged in and began demanding apologies for some slanderous things _I_ had supposedly said about her son. Which is complete tommyrot as you know Severus I don't talk about much, less slander any pupils in Hogwarts; but she was in no mind to hear anything and slapped me before stepping on my foot with her heels.

"After that I decided to leave early and retreat back to my home while I still could. Sadly, I should have locked myself in the office because Cissy was in a similar mood as Granger and that parent—she was waiting for me with her wand. I managed to pacify her for the most part until she began sprouting some nonsense that I had been seeing another woman behind her back. I lost my temper and made it clear that there wasn't any other witch than her. She slapped me before leaving the manor with all her luggage floating behind her. But….I'm sure she will be back by tomorrow." Lucius trailed off as he stood and retrieved his drink.

This time Severus did not stop him; his friend did need it.

After a few minutes Severus extinguished his pipe, pocket it, and stood. "You my dear friend have a doppelgänger. One that I'm positive was born from a bottle of Polyjuice. Or several of them."

"Polyjuice?" Lucius turned around from the mantel. "So anyone could have—or did impersonate me?"

Severus nodded as he fashioned his cloak, pulling up his hood. "Yes, anyone could have but I believe only one wizard did and I have a pretty strong suspicion as to whom. Now we must be off. The best way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing after all."

Lucius followed Severus to the front of the club. Still following Severus when he pulled one of the club members from an overstuffed chair to the Stranger's Room. From there it wasn't ten minutes until Severus had a confession that Mister Jeffery O'hare had brought a black market brewed potion to masquerade as Lucius. Apparently, two years ago, Lucius had expelled his nephew from Hogwarts for ungentlemanly behaviour unbefitting an English Wizard. It had been simple revenge.

When Lucius had inquired about how Severus had deduced the scanderal so rapidly he had simply replied: "Elementary really. I saw him collect one of your fallen hairs about six months ago from the snooker table. Until today I dismissed it as him simply wanting to tidy the table's surface before playing. Of course, I also remembered Robert O'hare's expulsion from Hogwarts… although not until earlier today did I surmise that they were related."

_Case closed_, Severus bemusedly thought as he opened the most recent potions journal and resumed reading the article co-written by one Hermione Jean Granger, Potions and Charms Mistress. A rare smile graced his lips as the memory of her curly hair electrically swaying as she stormed Lucius's office. Her warm chocolate eyes blazed with righteous anger as she punched Lucius for the crimes O'hare had done under Lucius's image.

He had enjoyed solving his friend's little enigma and he wouldn't mind if a similar situation made itself known again; especially— Severus had to suppress a smirk—especially one that could involve the charming Hermione Granger.

_Fini_


	4. Run Until It's Tomorrow

**Submitted for the sixth round of The International Wizarding School Championship.**

**School: Ilvermorny**

**Year: **_**Exchange Student 1 filling in for year 6**_

**Theme: **Explore characters that commit evil acts to achieve a positive outcome or for the (perceived) greater good**.**

_**Special Rule: up to M rating allowed (optional) [Not used]**_

**Main prompt: **[Song] Run Boy Run - Woodkid (Used in an interpretive way.)

**Optional prompts: **1\. [Action] Getting Kidnapped/Kidnapping, 2. [Setting] Your theme setting (i.e. Ilvermorny: The Coffin Shop)

**Wordcount: **_1,721_

**Author's Note: **An AU glimpse into a what-if wherein Sirius overacts to a new extreme.

**Timeline note:** In this AU the Potters go into hiding about three-four months after little Harry is born. Sirius begins his kidnapping plans about a month from Harry's birth.

**Trigger warning: **Minor character death, not graphic and off-screen.

**Shoutout to my awesome teammates for all their help! Betaed by Hailey and Amelia.**

* * *

**Run Until It's Tomorrow**

The bells from the old church steeple down the road rang-in the hour as they entered the sunlit library. Dust motes floated to and fro lazily in the shafts of sunshine streaming into the old building. The sounds of two typists busily typing away over in the secluded alcoves beyond the circulation desk played a kind of acoustic soundtrack that synchronized in syncopated rhythm with the dancing motes.

Harry tried to capture one of the pulsating specks as they passed a beam of moted dustlight but it avoided his tiny fists. He wrinkled his nose vowing that next time he would catch one as they approached the modest juvenile area.

"Hey, look they have your favorite blocks already out," Sirius quietly told the excited toddler who was rocking and patting Sirius's head from his place on Sirius's shoulders.

"Yay! Bricks!"

"Not so loud there, Slugger." Sirius chuckled as he knelt and helped the child down onto the multicolored floor of the small children's section that made up one corner of the old, refurbished Bishop Funeral Parlor that was now the Blackburn Public Library. "We don't want Miss Tightlips to hush us again, do we?"

The child's eyes grew wide and he hurriedly shook his head. His emerald green eyes hurriedly scanning the library for the librarian that was most feared by both him and his father: Miss Elizabeth Shoemaker. His shy smile returned only after verifying with his own black-rimmed spectacle clad eyes that the coast was clear.

Sirius returned the timid smile and ruffled his charge's hair playfully. "Now go build me something."

Sirius unrolled the newspaper he had picked up from the small reference section of the library and sat down on the maroon beanbag chair, one of several bean bags that lined the faded brickwork, as Harry busily began building a block tower.

He never felt right sitting on the old coffins turned window seats—his morbid humor drawing the line there regardless if it were for comfortable seating or not. Apparently he wasn't the only one who felt the same since he had never seen anyone lounging on the closed oak coffins—and thus the sun faded beanbags were it.

_The Times._ It wasn't the Daily Prophet, of course, but it was still something that connected him to England.

He also couldn't risk subscribing to the Daily Prophet or any wizarding press for that matter. They were living incognito in the small Arkansas town of seven hundred and forty-nine inhabitants. He was Samuel Blackthorn, a widower and thusly, a single father to one active son. A son that was also called by a pseudonym since Sirius couldn't think of Harry having an alias, he wasn't the criminal. No, his godfather was the only one with blood-stained hands. Little Harry Potter was James Blackthorn. A three-and-a-half-year-old boy who was happy, healthy, and most of all, _safe_.

His safety had been Sirius's driving force.

He had failed to protect so many.

Regulus.

Marlene.

Peter.

He had been determined not to fail his only godson. Even if it meant kidnapping and flight. Even if it meant Sirius abandoning everyone he cared about.

Harry had been worth it. Harry _was_ worth it.

A smile blossomed on his lips as Sirius watched Harry play innocently; however, the smile dampened as memories from the past crashed over him.

* * *

_"Moony, how does one go about getting a baby?"_

_Remus smirked, having long since learned not to fall victim to choking on his drink whenever Sirius asked an outlandish question which the brunet wizard was oft to do whenever they were all gathered around sharing drinks. _

_Sadly, poor Peter hadn't learned the same trick, as Remus summoned a clean handkerchief over to a firewisky-soaked Peter. Peter nodded his thanks and tried to return it only for it to drop into the firepit between them. _

_Remus shrugged off Peter's forthcoming apology. "Accidents happen. It's only a handkerchief."_

_Turning his attention back to Sirius, Remus quirked an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure you know everything about the owls and the pixies, Mister-I-dated-twenty-two-witches-during-Hogwarts."_

_"No, I need a baby now. Nine months would be too late." Sirius waved Remus' comments aside before taking another sip from his bottle of firewhisky. _

"_Wouldn't it be closer to ten?" Peter timidly asked as he took another long drink from his quickly emptying bottle._

_Remus and Sirius ignored him, both missing the glint of anger flash brightly in his eyes for the briefest of moments before vanishing as though it had never been there._

_"Have you tried Grace Brothers? I hear that for a Muggle department store it carries a wide section. Maybe it has a ready-made baby department," Remus added, barely suppressing his laughter. _

_"Grace Brothers, huh? All right, I'll check them tomorrow."_

_"You're not joking, are you?" Remus asked, worry replacing the momentary amusement that had captured his otherwise solemn features._

_Sirius grinned a toothy smile. "I'm Sirius, Moony."_

_Remus frowned. He knew all too well that whenever Sirius used the pun on the homophone between his name and the word _serious _that it signified sinister plotting. Plotting that most always ran along the fringes of propriety. _

_"Whatever you're planning on doing, _don't_. You cannot simply go up to a counter and ask for one baby to go."_

"_Planning? You wound me Moony. I was just curious." Sirius lied effortlessly. _

_He had an idea all right. A terrible, ridiculous one but when had that ever stopped him before? _

_Remus was right, of course, like always, it was a preposterous idea, one that had to be improbable much less impossible._

_He was the odds breaker—he had been the first Black to be sorted into Gryffindor, he had become an animagus before his OWLs, and despite being disowned (blasted off the family tree) he had still managed to inherit some wealth and an enchanted flying motorcycle. So, really, if any wizard could do this, it was him._

* * *

"Daddy, look what I made," Harry begged, running over to the maroon beanbag. His eyes were bright and happy.

Sirius looked up from the paper he hadn't been reading and smiled as he saw the precarious tower of blocks Harry had undoubtedly built.

"I see. That is some tower you made."

Harry beamed. "I'm going to make a castle next."

Sirius chuckled. "Then hop to it."

Harry nodded and rushed back to the still-standing four-foot tower of blocks.

Guilt slowly began to overcome Sirius as he watched Harry carefully divide his tower in half and begin his work on the main castle.

All the precious moments like this he had stolen from poor James and Lily… and from Lily's sister's family. Albeit, he probably helped little Devlin—or was it, Dudley?—by getting the roly-poly rugrat away from Plain Petunia and her clutches. The Dursleys were not cut out to be parents. It only took two days of closely monitoring their very Muggle middle-class cookie-cutter home and how Petunia ordered everyone around—Sirius swore it was like seeing his mother again—for him to know that they weren't fit for parenthood.

If only Peter hadn't decided to run after him…

* * *

_Sirius took a long breath of relief as he safely landed back onto the concrete patio in the back garden of 4 Privet Drive. The bundled up babe fast asleep, thanks to a handy charm Sirius had used, no use in frightening the little guy. _

_Still, Sirius whispered to the sleeping bundle as he calmly strolled away from 4 Privet Drive and the Dursleys. "Now, Dudley, how about a nice ride in a flying motorcycle? Your cousin Harry loves it." _

_A sudden squeak caused Sirius to turn around, his wand already in his hand as he switched the baby to one arm. _

_His posture relaxed as he saw it was only Wormtail. _

"_Peter, what are you doing mate?"_

_Peter fidgeted as he finished his transformation back from his rodent form. His eyes being the last to shift from black to his hazel as his hair finished shortening and returning its color back to its mousy brown. _

"_I—I could ask you the same, Padfoot." Peter hissed as he took a step closer to Sirius. He pointed at the wrapped bundle in his friend's arms. "Go—going for a midnight stroll are _we?"

_The stuttering was always worse after transforming for Peter but still, it didn't keep it from grating on Sirius's nerves. _

_Sirius sighed. If he told Peter the truth it would get back to Remus, it always did. _

"_I'm just collecting little Harry from his aunt and uncle's," he lied. "Got to get him back to James and Lily."_

_Of course, this had been before James and Lily had to go into hiding._

"_I didn't know Lily had relatives." Peter's frown grew. 'Another secret. Well, he could play the same game too. He had a secret that no one—not even brainy Remus or Lily—knew about.' _

_Sirius shrugged. "They aren't on the best of terms, I hear." _

_He needed to get away from here. Petunia had the odd habit of checking on her son almost every hour and the light to her room had just flicked on. _

_Sirius feigned remembering something with a soft expletive. "Bloody heck. I forgot about Harry's bag. Lily will kill me if I don't bring it back." He turned his full attention to Peter. "Wormtail, would you mind going back and fetching the bag?"_

_Peter blinked but nodded. "All right. I just ask for his bag? Nothing else?"_

"_Yep, that's it. I got his blankety." Sirius waved a folded corner of the yellow and white polka-dotted blanket to illustrate. "See?"_

_Peter turned and went up the way back to 4 Privet Drive. Sirius stayed just long enough to see him ring the doorbell as a scream erupted from the previously quiet house. _

_Upon hearing Petunia's scream he ran over to his motorcycle and quickly put Dudley down into the floorboard of the sidecar, before donning his helmet and gearing up his bike. _

_Peter calling his name was lost beneath the roar of the motorcycle's engine and the cold night's wind. _

* * *

Sirius sighed as he put down the paper. How was he to know that the big ox of a Muggle that Petunia married had a gun? Or that Peter would panic and try to shift back into his rat form causing the Muggles to freak and open fire?

Nor that the shot would force Peter back into human form before he finished his transformation. That his sins would be laid bare for all to see—a Dark Mark sinisterly etched into his forearm.

Somewhere along the way, he had become a turncoat—joining forces with the enemy.

Still, he knew that Peter's blood was on his hands even if that blood wasn't innocent. He'd still killed his friend, albeit indirectly.

But despite that big wrinkle he had made it work. He had snuck into James and Lily's home and had transfigured Dudley enough to pass for little Harry, successfully switching babies.

From there, he had become their secret keeper and had fled across the pond to the States.

They were safe as long as he was hidden away with little Harry.

The nightmares and guilt were a fairtrade all in all.

And if one of his nightmares bled into reality and Voldemort discovered that Harry was actually in the Southern United States, then they would run.

Run until they were safe—until _Harry _was safe—until tomorrow dawned and a new prophecy overwrites the last, cursed one.

They would run.

_Fini_


End file.
